When I hate being American (most of the time actually...)

Medicaid renewal hell has just opened for the year. I've just spent 2 hours doing my preliminary renewal application for myself and my kids, assembling about 10 pages of supporting financial documents, and starting a "paper trail" (detailing on what date I did exactly what in this application process) against the next several months of ensuing tug-of-war as the Oregon Health Plan repeatedly mails me to say my coverage has been cancelled because they never received the documents I sent them several times. (Bright spot: their forms are actually better this year and fewer documents are asked for, so maybe that won't happen for the third year running.)

This year I'm actually near the income cutoff for coverage (though maybe not once deductions are figured). (The cutoff for being poor enough to qualify is around $26,000 for a family of 3.) We'll see how they compute things. However, even if we keep our coverage this year, this will be a problem if I ever manage to have a career that pays a livable income. My employer has few health insurance slots and only for people who always work over half time--and I have yet to work a year there where I've been offered over half time for a whole year. The marketplace will be expensive. My partner currently has no insurance through his work (a contract position likely to end in 3 months), so he can't cover us on employer-based insurance. (He has ACA insurance now.) And this is the status quo: who knows what the Republicans might do.

Really, really tired of most Democrats not even mentioning Medicare for All. No wonder it's not part of that national conversation.

Thanks! I've been advocating for single payer health care since, what was it?, Prop 186? in California in 1994. Every time we get shot down: California's plan, Oregon's plan, Vermont's plan, Colorado's plan, California's plans a few times again. We're like a mouse trying to arm wrestle a gorilla.

Thank you! It is terrifying. It really is. I do sometimes engage (abstractly, I assure you) in wondering whether, if I got really ill (advanced cancer, etc.), I would rather go bankrupt and fight the health care system for years while being ill or just kill myself. Probably my survival instinct would win, but the fact that I even wonder this is telling, I think.